ABSTRACT
A very important methodology related to avoiding peaks and other energy supply difficulties on a timescale of hours is to manage work hours. In the past, industry, office, and retail shopping had hours that were rigorously set at the same fixed start and end times for all workers, employees, and shoppers. Today, many employers offer flextime, allowing time-shifts of working hours by up to a few hours. This has had substantial impact on the peak loads (of people and of energy) characterizing commutation to and from work by car, bus, or other means of transportation. In heavy industry with work in two or three shifts a day, this has rarely been seen as possible (although one may ask why), but globally, the fraction of all energy consumed by heavy industry has diminished in recent decades, not by becoming less important than before, but by having had less growth than the “soft” energy-use sectors. The time displacements occurring at present not only affect transportation, but also electricity and other energy demands by smoothing previous peaks seen when people were preparing to get to work (e.g., cooking breakfast, washing, showering) and shortly after the end of work hours (e.g., cooking dinner). The flextime schemes have smoothed energy consumption in offices to some extent, and particularly the extended-time options introduced in many countries for shopping have smoothed peaks in energy use of various kinds for this particular type of activity. Also affected in a positive way is the time variation of demands for household energy, such as heating or cooling, when people will no longer all have to be at work during the same hours.
